Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance by Savannah Rose (best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT) 📗

were given a choice by God, in which He would ask them to choose between Josh and I for early earthen dismissal, they'd point to me without batting an eye. They’d point to me every single time.

I can't say that I'd blame them. Not now, not anymore.

The look on my mother's face, at Josh's wake, when she walked in on me and my latest conquest… overwhelming disgust and betrayal… a mother should never look at her child that way. Later that same day, my father had that same expression. Only angrier. Mom must have told him because, well, of course she told him.

The worst part, in a cacophony of 'worst parts' to pick from, was that I never cried for my brother.

I didn't know if I was crying for him now.

I inhaled, deeply, through my nose and managed to take in more sand than air. My nostrils ran with snot, and little, sharp darts of pain shot through my head. The balloon my brain had become was inflating, and inflating, and inflating, and all I wanted it to do was pop. Blow completely off my goddamn neck.

“Who died,” Ramona asked, although she didn't say it in the form of a question.

“Josh...” I replied, but I wasn't sure if I said it or not.

My balloon brain was pressing against the side of my skull, my voice was crumbling, and won't someone please come by with an axe and chop off my arms? Is that so much to ask? How was it that I couldn't feel them, but they hurt so much?

Oh, my God, this sucks. This sucks so hard.

Then, my brain sloshed back to the middle of my skull. I was being pushed over. On my back. Another click, and a blast of nitrogen ignited beneath my nose. Maximum strength ammonia.

“Try again,” said Ramona. “Can't hear you with your face in the sand.”

Smelling salts. They must have been in the survival kit. I recognized the stench. We'd tried to revive Josh with them, after he overdosed.

“Who was Josh, she asked again,” she said.

“… he, was Josh… my brother... who died,” I snuffled through the sand, through the salt, through the tears.

“Wow, Maddy. Just, wow. Even like this, as fucked up as you are, you're still able to lie. Not only is your dick powered by the forces of evil, so is your head.”

I'm not lying… I swear to God I'm not lying. Josh was a good kid…

“Speaking of heads, Maddy-cakes, I've got to ask. Why’d you shave yours?” Her hand was on my scalp, stroking it, gently. Her thumb, on my eyebrow, almost sweetly. Nicely. I knew better, though. She was going to do something, something terrible, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. Every single scrap of strength was gone.

“...he kept looking back at me,” I said, trying to answer her question.

She took her hand away.

“What does that mean?”

“He was dead… every time I looked, in the mirror… he was looking back at me…” I wanted to point to my head, but of course, could not. “...red-head, too,” I managed to choke out, remembering how similar Josh and I looked on the outside. Polar opposite inside, though, and I wondered how the fuck that happened. Guess I'd never know.

“You had a twin?” Ramona asked.

“Not twins. Close. Couldn't deal with him looking at me after he died…”

The curtain began to come down, then. Black drapes, the kind that were draped behind Josh's coffin at the funeral house, descending toward the floor. I was laying on the floor, watching them start to cover me. My mom's face, my dad's face, looking at me as I fell deeper, and deeper away. I saw Josh's face, too, in between our parents.

He waved.

Chapter Twenty-Three

RAMONA

“Maddox?”

I patted his cheek – the one without the laceration. A dumb and useless move, yes. That's the way they tried to revive people in movies from the twenties. Taps on the cheek, pats on the hand, those were supposed to wake the unconscious heroine from her swoon. Ridiculous. What worked was a solid, open-palmed slap. I kept patting.

“Hey. Shithead. Wake up.”

His face was hot. His whole body was hot. When I'd put my foot on his chest, I may as well have been stepping on lit coals. It was supposed to be a Victorious Hunter pose. Me, demonstrating my triumph with my prey prone on the ground, gun pointed at his head just in case, and putting the period at the end of my 'I win' sentence.

I hadn't won, though.

I'd lost way before. Earlier, in the pond. I don't know what happened, why it happened, or how. I wanted to put the blame on some external factor, such as lack of a proper meal, no rest, exposure to the elements. None of those were affecting me, though, so the only person to point the finger of accusation at was myself.

There was something wrong with me. I'd wanted to humiliate him, jerk him off with no intention of letting him reach climax. It was literal torture for him, and it had been working. Until we were in the pond. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and begged me not to. I tried to be sly, and cool, and coyly question him as to why he didn't want to come.

And he didn't reply. He just breathed, heavy, his chest expanding and contracting – his muscles straining against restraints he could not break – and a sudden, lustful rush careened throughout my entire body. My sex tingled, watching him struggle, hearing him plead with me. Something inside me desperately wanted release, too, and it took over. Whatever it was put itself in charge, and it was like I was moving in some kind of dream state.

I wrapped my legs around his waist. The heat inside me grew hotter, despite the chill of the water. Or, perhaps because of it. The head of his cock was